


be skeptical, their smiles of plated gold (deceit so natural)

by viceandvirtue



Series: prompt collection [17]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different Flame Types, Gen, I don't know, I tried to write it one way and it went another so I don't even know anymore, Maybe - Freeform, Poor Roy, Reincarnation, Roy is just very very done, This is something, Varia Quality (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), feat. Roy's Amestris-sized guilt complex, he still feels like the only sane man in a room full of lunatics, it gets better though, it starts out sad, like really really sad, prompter I hope you're happy, spoiler alert: he is, this kind of crazy was only supposed to happen to the Elrics, this makes me want to give him a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 02:40:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19843867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceandvirtue/pseuds/viceandvirtue
Summary: Dino's dreams are monochromatic colored with blood and fire and a ruthless military cunning and when he awakens his flames they're the color of Ishvalan eyes instead of an Amestrian sunset. The world sits up and takes notice.





	be skeptical, their smiles of plated gold (deceit so natural)

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Aoife_Prompt_Collection_KHR](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Aoife_Prompt_Collection_KHR) collection. 



> "Roy Mustang reborn in the KHR world as Dino Cavallone." - Anonymous prompt

Roy Mustang dies in the dark, Führer, utterly alone and haunted. It's what he expected though. He seemed to come out of everything alone. He lost Maes in 1914, he lost the Elrics to the Gate - to something he doesn't want to confront, he lost Riza - taking a bullet for him like she always said she would and he _hates_ that she was right. When he dies, he does not expect to wake up again. But he does wake up again - in the body of a child. His brain - the one part of himself that he hid from other people - adapted quickly . He knows of reincarnation, had hoped that the people he lost had been reincarnated somewhere kinder if that is what happened. But he never thought he had been a good enough person that it would ever happen to him.

When he looks in the mirror he catalogues blond hair and eyes a few shades lighter than the black he's used to seeing - brown and more prone to expression than he would like. He was nearing forty when he became Führer, and the transition from adult man to young child is harder than he imagined it would be. He feels like he should be taller, that his hands should be bigger, his stride longer, and callouses that don't exist should give him a different grip. He's almost clumsy as a result though he manages to keep from making a fool of himself in short order. If there's one thing he's always hated, it's to be perceived as anything other than how he wants people to perceive him.

His father is alive in this time, and he doesn't quite know how to feel about that. On one hand, it's strange not being under the care of Chris, to no longer be considered an orphan. On the other, his father now is not a kind man, and Roy ( _Dino, his name is Dino and he needed to get used to it_ ) is used to people not being kind but this seems deliberate. A scheme to shape him in someone else's image, to fit a mold already made for him. Roy's never took well to that back when he was an Amestrian soldier hardened by war and time - though he certainly did a good job of pretending he was - and he doesn't take kindly to it now. Once he figures this out, he's immediately trying to find ways to change this; to aggravate without being problematic, circumvent without deliberate disobedience.

So he puts steel to his spine and perfects all over again the art of looking down his nose at people, thinking three steps ahead, and acting nonchalantly pleased when they do exactly what he knew they would. It impresses the cold man - Zefiro, he learns - that is his father and gives him more responsibility, more freedom and less supervision. Eventually Zefiro signs him up for school, the Mafia Academy, and a part of him that survives on his dark humor and self-deprecation cackles at the irony that he's a criminal now when he was a military man in a former life.

But when he looks around at the _Famiglia_ that Zefiro runs, he notes all of the problems and can see the unrest, what needs to be fixed, and he complies because he knows that he can learn how to better fix what he sees.

* * *

Romario worries about a lot of things. The state of the Cavallone Famiglia, Don Zefiro's declining health, but mostly he worries about Dino. Dino...who woke up one day changed, whose eyes aged decades overnight. The boy who was kind and innocent and seemed to just barely grasp the kind of life they lived now seems almost cruel in comparison. And Romario won't say it unless Zefiro or Dino himself does, but he sees the boy's manipulation in the household, can see the look in his eyes is not that of a facade newly made, but one that is well practiced with years of experience. Experience that Dino at his age shouldn't have. There's other things he's worried about too. Like the fact that he can't feel the fledgling bond he was beginning to suspect he was forming with Dino. It's not muted or weak, it's gone entirely. He doesn't know what that means but he doesn't think it means anything good.

When he hears that Zefiro has called Reborn in to look at his son, to evaluate him, Romario adds it to his list of worries but ultimately finds himself in a position in which he cannot say anything.

* * *

Squalo Superbi doesn't like Zefiro Cavallone's son, despite being able to appreciate the ruthless edge that shines through in every barbed word, silver-tongued suggestion, and seemingly careless yet purposeful action. There's something off about the young Sky - mainly that he doesn't _feel_ like a Sky - and it doesn't line up with what he knew. That Dino was bright but nothing special, wasn't very athletic, and wasn't some great manipulator, that he possessed an innate kindness that made him personable and yet somewhat vulnerable to people who sought to take advantage of his good nature. So when Dino Cavallone enters the Mafia Academy behaving completely against anyone's expectations, Squalo is suspicious. Sure, weakness can be trained out, can be cultivated into strength, but that type of change in personality spoke to the likes of reprogramming or other sinister means that Squalo knows the Cavallone could never get away with per the terms of the Alliance.

The Dino Cavallone he's confronted with is able to talk circles around their instructors, and breezes through advanced math, economics, statistics, strategy, tactics, and firearms training as if he's been doing it his whole life. The homework seems to give him pause, but he eventually breezes through that too and spends most of his time slouched in his chair with a cocky smirk on his face. In the halls, he flirts shamelessly with any female within hearing distance but never once gets slapped for it the way some of the other students do when they try the same stunt. It aggravates Squalo to the point where he's almost willing to hold the creepy little bastard at sword point and demand his answers. But he can't. And it's not until Dino stands toe to toe with Xanxus and snarls in his face and he can see the light go off in his Sky's eyes that he begins to form a picture that has him almost howling at the misfortune that has befallen the Cavallone Famiglia.

* * *

Roy knows as soon as the teacher skims over the subject in class that he's not the Sky people assume he is. He doesn't feel the urge to collect Guardians the way he sees Skies do. And perhaps it was his alchemy that makes the difference now, but he can put the puzzle together. And later, in the privacy of his rooms (because putting young Skies together in a confined space like a dorm room is just asking for a massacre), he manages to pull his flames to the surface and is wholly unsurprised when they burn red on his hands. The color and feel of the heat from the Storm flames alight on his hand is a familiar and comforting sight and he both revels and fears holding his old power in his hands. He doesn't know if there's an Ishval here he'll be called to destroy, but one thing he knows about fire is that it's destructive and it will always be used to someone else's gain. He refuses to yet again be a crematorium in someone else's war. And if he does, it'll be his choice.

* * *

Xanxus has a Rain and possibly a Storm - which is more than most Skies can claim at his age - and Dino Cavallone, who by all rights should be a Sky in his Generation, is a Storm fit for the likes of the Leoni rather than a Sky that can inherit a Family. He doesn't realize this until he tries to push around Zefiro's son to test his mettle and gets Dino snarling in his face and Storm flames snapping at him from underneath constraints so tight it's a wonder Xanxus can feel those Flames at all. But his Wrath Flames purr at the feel of the Storm Flames that brush up against his before disappearing again. He sees the resolve in Dino's eyes and accepts that unlike his bond with Squalo, this will be no snap-bond. He will have to earn his Storm Guardian's bond and he relishes in the challenge.

Over the next few days, Dino pulls him aside when he's not flirting with the school girls that all seem reluctantly charmed, and tells him that they can't let anyone know. That their potential for a bond has to be kept under wraps. So Xanxus starts meeting him in secret, Squalo ever loyal at his side, in the dead of night in the dorms. Dino tells them of what he's trying to fix, why he can't take place as Xanxus's Storm just yet but if they just _wait_ -

Xanxus, for all his reputation, is a predator. He knows patience, and he's willing to play the long game here.

* * *

Reborn, when he first meets Dino, is not impressed with the boy. He sees the spreadsheets and the paperwork, the treatises and family history, and writes it off as Zefiro trying to teach his son responsibility. What he doesn't see is the change in the Cavallone Famiglia that only starts after Dino somehow grew a spine - because he wasn't there for most of it. But he tries nonetheless to see what it is that Zefiro so obviously sees in his heir and when he shoots the boy with a Dying Will Bullet, trying to remove the constraints on the boy's Flames, Dino explodes not in Sky but in _Storm_. A Storm so strong that if Reborn were any weaker the force of it would have brought him to his knees. The red flame whips out to curl around Dino's hands for a moment before Dino wrestles his control back and puts out his Flames. The World's Greatest Hitman was not prepared for that and when he demands his answers, Dino merely gives him a defiant stare and tells him his services aren't needed, and that he knows what he's doing.

Dino does strike a deal with him, for the price of his silence on the matter, one favor, any time he calls for it within reason. Reborn agrees because a favor from an Alliance family heir - or whatever Zefiro plans to do now - is not a thing to take lightly.

* * *

Gokudera Hayato grew up hearing stories of the Sky-That-Wasn't and the Varia's Storm Commander. Dino Cavallone was someone he both feared and looked up to, as did most people when they heard the name of the silver-tongued Storm that had built his father's Famiglia from near-ruination, had handed it off to the next eligible Sky in the family and then had secreted himself away in Varia Headquarters with his Sky, was both a cautionary tale of arrogance and an example of making the best of a bad situation.

So when Reborn brings Dino to Namimori for a few weeks to help his Sky and himself, he can't help but wonder what the Cavallone is like. Outside of his reputation, little was actually known about the man, and his Flames rumbled in discontentment of letting such an unknown close to his Home. 

But Dino is everything his reputation says he is and more, and Gokudera can't help but admire that. Despite what the Mafia had dictated for Dino he hadn't crumbled under the pressure of being something he wasn't. That was something that perhaps Hayato should have learned as a child, but was only now just getting the chance to realize. 

**Author's Note:**

> I might split this up into small chapters and figure out a way to improve this, but for now this is what I've got so I'm going to leave it as is.


End file.
